Bartleby the Badass

—From a classified ad posted on Harvardwood.org, an online community for Harvard students and graduates in the entertainment industry.

CONFIDENTIAL

Marty:

Just following up on our earlier conversation regarding Michael (Snake) Blastich, the “badass” assistant hired by Gary Handler, our senior V.P. of marketing and communications. At the time, Gary claimed that hiring Blastich was a major part of his plan to think outside the box, refresh the brand, and pivot toward younger, hipper consumers.

Unfortunately, it’s become clear that Gary’s experiment has not worked and that we need to fire Blastich as soon as possible, before he can do any further damage. A key issue is whether Blastich can be terminated for cause, which would enable us to get rid of him immediately, instead of waiting out a mandatory cooling-off period and going through a peer-mediation procedure. That’s why I’d like to get your opinion about which of the following, if any, constitute firing offenses.

—Answering the phone with “Yo!,” rather than the standard greeting mandated by the company manual.

—Allowing Satan, his pet Burmese python, to lay a large number of eggs in the ventilating system. (In his defense, Blastich told Laurie Gregg that the snake is a “service animal” after she found several baby pythons in a bowl of dehydrated soup mix she was preparing for her lunch.)

—Although we’ve loosened up on the dress code in the past few years, Blastich’s usual attire of a “Licensed Bikini Inspector” cap worn with a “Free Mustache Rides” sleeveless T-shirt seems unacceptable by any standard. Apart from appearing unprofessional, it could be perceived by a female employee as contributing to a hostile work environment. (I am relieved that we have been unable to substantiate the rumors that Blastich planted a hidden “ass-cam” in the ladies’ room.)

—Switching the hold music from easy country to non-stop death metal.

—Putting our regular letter carrier, Sam Park, in a headlock after Sam asked Blastich to sign for a registered letter. As a result, we have not had any mail delivery since the eighteenth. We have also not received any UPS deliveries for several weeks, which leads me to believe that something similar may have happened to our UPS guy.

—Besides Sam’s, Blastich has been directly or indirectly responsible for a number of other injuries. I myself walked into a chinning bar he had installed in the men’s-room doorframe. Rebecca Daly, an intern in our research department, injured her leg when she slipped on some oil that had dripped from a motorcycle that Blastich was repairing in his cubicle. And Blastich slapped our bookkeeper, Francis McCoy, on the ear when he inadvertently got in the way of a ball of masking tape that Blastich was trying to throw into a wastebasket.

—Smoking in restricted areas, including the break room, the elevators, the parking lot, the men’s room, the ladies’ room, the conference room, main reception, Gary’s office, and his own cubicle, as well as during an all-hands briefing on fire safety mandated by our insurance carrier.

—Blastich recently brought a personal acquaintance, whom he introduced as Poker Face, into the office and asked him to disable the software that prevents the viewing of Internet pornography. Poker Face then went around the office offering to do the same for others for twenty-five dollars, an offer that I’m sorry to say five employees availed themselves of.

—There was also a mysterious incident in the parking lot involving a woman who appeared to be trying to run Blastich over with a pickup truck while shouting obscenities. Blastich maintained that it was “all a joke,” as he forcibly restrained the woman. He was eventually able to persuade her to leave by giving her eighty dollars that he borrowed from Eddie Swenson.

I am worried that Blastich will not go quietly. When I spoke with him last week about the widely shared suspicion that someone had urinated in the coffee urn, he became belligerent and chased me into Gil Schwartzman’s office, where I was forced to remain for forty-five minutes, which caused me to miss the start of the weekly meeting of department heads.

It would be helpful to get Gary’s input on the matter, but no one has seen him for at least two weeks. Blastich insists that Gary is “working from home” and has offered to pass along any messages. I tried Gary at home but got no answer, and when I called his cell Blastich picked up, so it’s been impossible to confirm any of this independently. Despite Gary’s absence, Blastich continues to show up for work punctually—so punctually, in fact, that some people have wondered if he has moved into a storeroom or another low-traffic area on the premises.

Since it seems that it will be difficult to terminate Blastich through the standard H.R. process, I have taken the liberty of placing a classified ad for a “Complete Psycho” in the “No Questions Asked” section of Soldier of Fortune. My hope is that this option will be a last resort, but I am out of ideas for other ways to dislodge him. If I am able to find a suitable psycho, rest assured that he will be hired as a temp and will not be eligible for benefits of any kind.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Pete ♦

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